


i defy you, stars

by dc_wlw



Series: Bemily Week 2k18 [3]
Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Tragedy, Bemily Week 2018, Bemily Week Day 4, F/F, Heavy Angst, I am so sorry, Please Forgive me, Soulmate AU, i think i might have to retire from writing this took so much out of me, what did i just do
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-03-31 08:03:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13970790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dc_wlw/pseuds/dc_wlw
Summary: Most people think they know when they’ve found their other half. They know that in the whole world of people that this one they love is the only one. It would be kind of beautiful, Beca thinks, if it weren’t so goddamn terrifying.//Soulmate AU where each person has the other's last words written somewhere on their skin.Bemily Week 2018Day 4: Soulmates





	i defy you, stars

**Author's Note:**

> *ANGST WARNING*
> 
> ohohohoho boy this is depressing i am so sorry please forgive me

Beca thinks the whole concept of soulmates is ridiculous and stupid and the damn universe shouldn’t have made it true.

 

Like, seriously, one person in the entire world that you’re allowed to love and be with forever? What if you never find them in the whole some seven billion human beings that exist in the world?

 

It’s entirely possible. Some people go their whole lives waiting for their soulmates, and when they die, they realize they never found them. Which also, is another absurd, fucked up part of the whole “soulmates” thing, according to Beca: you have their damn _last words to you_ written somewhere on your skin. How sadistic is that? Not knowing you were with your soulmate until they leave you. How are you supposed to live like that?

 

But people do. They get on with their lives. Most people think they know when they’ve found their other half. They know that in the whole world of people that this one they love is the _only_ one. It would be kind of beautiful, Beca thinks, if it weren’t so goddamn terrifying.

 

No one ever dares say those words to the end. The moment they start dating someone, those words leave their vocabulary for the foreseeable future: either until they break up, or until they die.

 

They say you know, in the end. Whether those words are your words. It’s like a gut feeling, a moment of clarity, where you know those words are the only things you could say in that moment.

 

Others say it’s a moment of amnesia. You just forget the words you’ve studied every day on your significant other, forget you’re not supposed to say them, never supposed to say them. And then the end comes, and the moment of clarity hits them.

 

And then it’s too late.

 

Like she said. Fucking terrifying.

 

//

 

When Beca meets Emily, she thinks she finally understands what people talk about. Every other relationship she’d had, whether wholly good or bad, just somehow had never felt right. She’d pushed the feeling down, almost convinced herself she didn’t feel it. Almost. It was the weight that lifted off her chest every time a relationship ended.

 

But with Emily, she knows that feeling isn’t there. It’s been replaced with a feeling of pure ecstasy, an undying, unconditional love that she knows could never be broken.

 

They meet at the record store that Beca works at, Beca fresh out of college, Emily only in her second year at Barden, and they bond instantly over their love of music. Beca tells Emily she’s going to move to LA to become a DJ, and Emily tells her that she wants to write music.

 

“Maybe I’ll see you in LA,” Emily jokes, and Beca smiles.

 

“Well, I mean, you could just see me here. For coffee or something?” Beca replies, and honestly, she thinks it’s the smoothest she’s ever been.

 

Emily trips over her words as she tries to say yes, and Beca chuckles lightly at the taller girl’s cute rambling.

 

It becomes a regular thing, and within a few weeks, Emily asks Beca to be her girlfriend.

 

It doesn’t cross Beca’s mind once to say no.

 

//

 

At first the words don’t make sense. They’re very poetic, and they rhyme, and they really don’t seem like a Beca thing to say, so much so that she has a minor panic attack the first time she reads them. There’s no way Emily could _not_ be her soulmate. The moment they met, it was like every cliché that humanity had ever dreamed up about love, and the fact that thinking that didn’t bother Beca told her that this girl was it. Her soulmate.

 

Then Beca googles the words, and what she finds makes so much sense she can’t help but laugh.

 

They’re song lyrics.

 

What terrifies her, though, is that she realizes the words she’s gazed at every day of her life on her own skin (in cursive print along her wrist) are from the same song. It’s terrifying because she knows that means they’re going to know when it’s the end. It means they’re going to say those words knowing full well that it’s the last time they’ll be together.

 

When she tells Emily, the younger girl goes quiet for a good five minutes. Beca just sits with her letting her process.

 

The rationalising part of Emily’s brain goes into overdrive and tries to tell her that everything is going to be okay. They don’t know when the end will be, they probably have all the time in the world. Most people go through it, this isn’t news, she knows she’ll have to go through it someday.

 

She hears the thoughts circling around in her head, but no matter how much she rationalizes, she just can’t accept it. This whole thing is wrong, she shouldn’t have to go through the pain of waiting for those words every day, fearing them, fearing what’s written on her own skin.

 

Then she has an idea.

 

“To heck with them,” she says out of the blue, and Beca, who’d been off in her own head, jumps slightly.

 

“I - what?” she replies, confused by Emily’s sudden outburst.

 

“To heck with the words.”

 

“Woah, Em, watch the language,” Beca starts sarcastically with a smirk colouring her face, which quickly turns serious again. “And what do you mean? Are you crazy? It’s, like, written in the stars, or whatever. We can’t just - what, not say them?”

 

“Well, yeah, if we never say them, we don’t have to live in fear of them for our whole lives,” Emily says, and there’s a crazy look in her eyes that kind of scares Beca. “The whole system is stupid, anyway, you say so yourself all the time. I mean, what, we have to force ourselves to say those words? That seems like a major oversight, universe. So let’s just not say them. Change our destiny,” she says, a cute little smile gracing her lips as she says the last three words. “Or whatever,” she adds with that same smile in response to Beca’s look of incredulity at her.

 

“We just - that - we can’t -” Beca tries, but Emily’s words are making a lot of sense to her current state of denial. Her brain tries to come up with a counter-argument for Emily’s spiel, but she convinces herself that Emily’s right, that it’s possible, that they can screw the words and just live their lives the way they choose.

 

“Well damn, Em,” she continues after a pause, “you make a very convincing argument.”

 

“So what do you say? Should we go all Romeo and Juliet and ‘defy the stars’?”

 

“Yeah. Yeah, let’s defy the stars,” Beca says, and she’s still a little taken aback by Emily’s sudden vendetta against the universe.

 

“Good. I like this. Rebellion is fun,” she says and she puffs out her chest like she’s proud of herself. Beca can’t help but laugh and lean forward to bring Emily into a deep kiss. She’s proud of her, too.

 

//

 

They’ve been together three years when Beca proposes to Emily at the record store. She hasn’t worked there since just after she met Emily. She hasn’t even lived in Atlanta in two years. She and Emily had moved out to LA, like they said they would the day they met, and they were both breaking into the music industry. They both have insane amounts of talent, so it’s not a surprise that they’re moving up the ranks pretty fast.

 

They take a trip back to Atlanta for a weekend, Beca claiming she wants them to go see her dad.

 

(She does, but like, under any other circumstances, she’d just let him come to her.)

 

She says she wants to go back for nostalgic reasons, which is also true, but Emily thinks she just wants to go back there to see how far she’s come.

 

They spend ten minutes perusing the records while Beca works up the courage to ask the question. When she finally does, she does it suddenly, afraid that she’ll lose the nerve if she waits any longer.

 

It’s kind of perfect timing. Emily turns around to excitedly show Beca that they have a copy of the first record she’d ever worked on, and finds Beca standing behind her, already lowering onto one knee.

 

She nearly drops the record out of shock.

 

Beca even had a whole speech prepared, but when it comes to actually asking the question, there are only a few words that come to mind.

 

“What do you say? Wanna defy the stars with me forever?”

 

Emily drops to her knees before Beca can even open the ring box and kisses Beca deeply, breaking away when the laughter bubbling up inside her becomes too much to hold back and tears of happiness threaten to start rolling down her cheeks.

 

“So is that a yes, or -?”

 

“Of course it’s a yes, you dummy,” Emily laughs, and Beca smiles the widest smile she’s ever managed. She slips the ring onto Emily’s finger, and Emily looks into her eyes as she says, “I love you,” and Beca doesn’t think she’s ever heard more beautiful words. They share one last kiss before Emily pulls Beca into a hug that Beca thinks could sustain her for the rest of her life.

 

//

 

For the next three years, the words barely cross their minds. When they see them on each other’s skin, they’re not something to be feared. They’re a reminder that they’re in it together, that their love is strong enough to defeat anything. The cliché of it all is actually kind of comforting.

 

Both of their careers are in full swing. Beca’s a junior producer at a major label, and Emily is working on her second solo album, having written countless hits for the big names in music before she decided to perform her own songs.

 

Despite their phenomenal success, though, they’re very young to be where they are. Beca's only 28, and Emily only 25. They’d celebrated Emily’s 25th birthday by collaborating on a song, which had reached Number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 within weeks, and fans of both girls were collectively dying over the new ‘it couple’.

 

Because of their insane work schedules, they’re constantly playing phone tag, one always free just as the other is going into a meeting or the recording studio.

 

“Hey, Em, sorry I missed your last, like, five calls, I swear to god, if Theo doesn’t get off my back soon, I’m gonna murder someone. Probably him. Anyway, sorry that you missed _my_ last five calls, cause I really wanted to tell you that you’re the most amazing person alive and I’ll love you forever, but I guess now I’ll never get to. Just kidding, I’ll tell you tonight when we’re finally reunited IN PERSON, god I hate technology.”

 

There’s a pause where Beca ruminates on how much she truly does hate technology, and she thinks about how old she sounds even thinking it, and it lasts until she realises she’s in the middle of leaving Emily a message.

 

“Oh, wait! I also wanted to tell you I’m picking up Chinese food on the way home, so text me what you want. Okayiloveyouseeyousoonbye!”

 

She hangs up the phone just as she reaches her car, and she fumbles in her bag for her keys before finding the keychain Emily had bought her, a treble clef linked with a music note.

 

_“It’s you and me,” Emily said as she handed Beca the keychain she’d bought on impulse when she saw it at a flee market. “See? You’re the treble clef and I’m the note.”_

 

_“Why am I the treble clef?” Beca had retorted, already linking it to her keys._

 

_“Because you keep me grounded,” Emily said._

 

_“Aw, babe. That makes no sense,” Beca laughed, giving Emily a quick peck on the lips in thanks._

 

_“Yeah, okay, it’s a loose metaphor, just go with it and accept your gift,” Emily huffed, and Beca laughed again as her wife crossed her arms indignantly._

 

_“I love it,” Beca said with another kiss. “It is never coming off my keys.”_

 

Beca traces her thumb over the metal and smiles absentmindedly, before clicking the button on her key to unlock her car.

 

Now, to say that Beca’s a safe driver would be a major understatement. She says she’s never not indicated (which Emily is skeptical about, but she lets Beca hold onto her little fantasy), and she’s never so much as even just slowed down at a stop sign instead of coming to a complete stop (“Because that would be irresponsible, Emily, god, who raised you?”).

 

But other people? Other people can be idiots. Other people can let a few near-misses slide and call themselves responsible.

 

Other people can be drunk and careless and not see the light turn red, and plough their truck into the side of a car coming from the perpendicular lane of an intersection.

 

That’s how Beca got here, sitting in her smashed up Prius, blood flowing steadily from a gash in her head, a dull, aching pain in her abdomen, wishing she was anywhere else, preferably with Emily. She tries to move any part of her body, but she feels like… well, like she’s just been hit by a truck. Every muscle in her body feels weak and like moving it would cause a fire in her body.

 

She feels lightheaded, which she assumes has something to do with the blood that’s begun to trickle down into her eye.

 

The pain in her body is so extreme that she feels like she shouldn’t be able to think of anything else. Unsurprisingly, images of Emily start to flood her mind anyway.

 

Emily, smiling as Beca sings to her. Furrowing her brow as she’s working on a new song, trying to find the words that’ll tie it all together.

 

Emily, laughing that beautiful laugh of hers that could cure disease.

 

Emily, crying on their wedding day.

 

Emily, fumbling over her words on the day they met.

 

Emily, lying beside her in bed, Beca tracing the words written on her shoulder blade, thinking they’re beautiful despite her aversion to the system.

 

Then Beca feels it. She feels it, and she would laugh if she weren’t in so much pain. It would be bitter, ugly. It would be a fuck you to the universe for letting her think that she’d escaped it, for letting her think that she had any choice in the way her life had panned out. For bringing her to this moment. Because she knows what she has to do now.

 

She reaches over to her bag in the passenger seat, and she thinks she nearly blacks out from the pain. But she won’t let herself pass out, no matter how much she wants to. This is too important.

 

She fumbles through her bag, painfully slowly, until she clasps her hand around her phone. She thumbs in her passcode and clicks on Emily’s name in her phone app, still open since the last time she called her what seems like forever ago.

 

Normally, she’d be worried that Emily wouldn’t pick up due to their unyielding game of phone tag, but right now, something in her is telling her with great certainty that Emily will be right on the other side.

 

The phone rings a few times before there’s a crackling noise and Emily’s voice is flooding through from the other side.

 

“Beca! Thank god I finally caught your call! Does this mean I win phone tag?”

  
  
What Beca really wants to say is, “Emily, you can’t _win_ phone tag, it’s not that kind of game.”

 

But she can’t. Her mind jokes that that’s the real bummer of this situation, which really isn’t a surprise.

 

_Inappropriate jokes ‘til the end, I guess._

 

“Em,” is what she goes with. Not by choice. She'd wanted to say more so as to not give Emily a chance to speak again before she could explain, but her body wouldn’t let her.

 

“Hey, can we get Chinese food for dinner? I’m starving and I really need some Kung Pao Chicken in me, like, right now,” Em continues, and Beca thinks her heart warms at the pure Emily-ness of the statement.

 

“Em,” Beca tries again, but it’s still all she can manage.

 

“I know, I know, _‘you can’t live off Kung Pao Chicken, Emily’_. Well to that I just say watch me try.”

 

Beca wants to reply, wants to say what she needs to say, but she needs a second to muster up any ounce of strength she has left to do what she needs to do. As a result, there’s a long pause on the line, and Emily gets a little confused.

 

“Beca, are you still there?”

 

“Yeah, Em, I’m here,” is the first thing she manages to get out, and she really wishes her breaths weren’t so ragged and limited, because Emily starts to get worried that her wife hasn’t come up with a witty retort yet.

 

“Becs, is everything okay?”

 

Another pause. Some ragged breaths.

 

“No,” she breathes, and she can feel the little energy she had left draining, and she knows she doesn’t have much time.

 

“Beca, you’re scaring me, what’s wrong?”

 

“I love you.”

 

“Beca, if that’s what’s wrong, I swear I’m going to -”

 

“I was… in an accident,” Beca pushes out through laboured breaths.

 

“Look, if this is a joke, it’s really not funny,” Emily says, and the fear in her voice is so evident it makes Beca’s heart hurt.

 

“Not… a joke,” Beca says, her voice so strained now that Emily knows she’s not kidding.

 

“Beca, where are you, what’s happening?”

 

“It’s okay, Em,” she says, and all Emily can do is listen, her breaths quick and shallow, waiting for Beca to tell her how to help, where to be.

 

“I love you.” She can’t stop saying it. She needs Emily to know.

 

“I think… I’m dying,” Beca says weakly, and she hates being so blunt, but she thinks Emily needs to hear it.

 

“No, Beca, you’re not dying, you’re not -”

 

“Em.”

 

“- you’re gonna be okay, alright, you’ll be fine -”

 

“Em.”

 

“- you just need to tell me where you are so I can help you -”

 

“ _Emily_ ,” Beca says, a sense of finality in her voice that takes so much effort that Emily can hear it, and she stops talking immediately.

 

Beca can tell by the sound of her sniffs in between words and her choked up voice that Emily’s crying, and the fear of hurting Emily is so much worse than the very real fear of dying that she’s feeling at the same time. But she can’t dwell on either.

 

“I need… to do… something.” Beca’s vision is blurring, the edges of her sight fading into darkness, but she practically wills her heart to keep beating so she can finish what she needs to do.

 

There’s a pause where Emily’s mind races, because she needs to help Beca, and what could Beca possibly need to do that’s more important than telling Emily where she is?

 

But then she gets a feeling, and somehow she knows that Beca feels it too, and she knows exactly what Beca’s about to do.

 

“Beca, don’t you dare,” Emily starts, and the tears start flowing freely down her face. “We had a deal, you can’t just - please, Beca, don’t, okay, you don’t have to, you’re going to be fine,” Emily says through body-wracking sobs, but even she knows what she’s saying is wrong. And she knows that Beca has to do it, because she can feel it too, and she knows that come the time, she’s going to have to do it, too.

 

“I’m sorry, Em.”

 

“Beca, no -”

 

“How do we rewrite the stars?” Beca starts to sing, and it’s weak, but the melody is intact, and Emily can’t do anything but listen.

 

“Say you were made to... be mine,” Beca’s energy is fading by the second, but singing to her is as natural as breathing.

 

Her voice is so soft that Emily has to strain her ears to listen, but the beauty of what she’s hearing doesn’t escape her in that moment.

 

“Nothing can keep us apart…”

 

Emily thinks it’s the most beautiful sound she’s ever heard.  


 

“'Cause you are the one I was meant to find… It's up to you…”

 

The pauses Beca takes between each line are getting longer and longer, and no matter how much she wants to, Emily can’t bring herself to interrupt.

 

“And it's up to me…”

 

Images start to appear in Emily’s mind (and by this point, her tears know their job, and they’re sticking to it). Images of Beca.

 

Beca’s look of shock as Emily asked her to defy the stars.

 

Beca’s nervous smile just before she said I love you for the first time. Her cheesy grin when Emily said it back.

 

Beca’s laugh, god, her laugh. Seldom heard, but brighter than the sun when it was.

 

Beca’s look of concentration when she talked about music, like she was going to change the world.

 

Beca’s smooth talking when she asked her out on the day they met.

 

“No one can say what we get to be…”

 

Emily’s not ready. She couldn’t ever be, but at this moment, she really wasn’t ready. She couldn’t lose Beca. She couldn’t lose the love of her life, her partner in crime. She was only 25. They’d barely lived. They were supposed to be a walking cliché, have two kids, a grumpy old cat, grow old together. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

 

“And why don't we rewrite the stars?”

 

Beca’s voice is barely a whisper, and both she and Emily know she only has seconds. Emily has the fleeting thought that if she never says the words, Beca can’t leave her. Not now, not like this.

 

But she knows it doesn’t work like that.

 

“Beca, I love you.”

 

It’s not a statement. It’s a plea. She needs Beca to know that before she says goodbye.

 

The words leave her lips before she has time to hold them back.

 

“Changing the world to be ours.”

 

The moment the melody dies, Emily can feel it. Like a tether being cut.

 

It’s then that she hears the unmistakable blare of an ambulance siren.

**Author's Note:**

> ahhhhhhhh what was that! i don't even know!
> 
> didn't know how to end it sososososorry
> 
> also please just suspend a little disbelief and pretend this song existed back when Beca googled the lyrics thank you have a good night
> 
> on tumblr at @annakenendrick


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